Sonic the Hedgehog #203 (Oct 2009)
     Pat Spaziante cover: I've heard of worm's-eye views before,
but THIS one isn't afraid to get right down in the dirt!  Sonic
is on the verge of being blasted by Bunnie, in a situation that's
nowhere near the truth of what happens in the story proper.  But
this is a comic book cover, so what else is new?  It's also
interesting to note the almost-marginalized figure of Khan in the
background.  Back when Frank Strom created him in 1998, he did
indeed have big hair which has since been tamed by Yardley! and
Butler.  Although that has nothing to do with the title:


     "Heavy is The Head: Part 1: Surprise Visit"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Steven Butler; Ink: Terry Austin and
Jim Amash; Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman; Editor:
Mike Pellerito; Editor-in-Chief: Victor Gorelick; Sega Licensing
reps: Cindy Chau and Jerry Chu

     Looks like Monkey Khan's appearance in the comic so far is
getting some negative reviews.  Actually, we come across Khan
getting stoned (in the Biblical sense; sorry to disappoint you)
by three young furlings collectively known as the "Orphans," one
of whom, Sasha, will grow up to be a broadcast journalist and is
apparently already learning the tricks of the trade although in
that case she should be slinging mud instead of stones.  Sonic
then intervenes and disarms the kids who are more ticked off at
Khan's having derailed Mina's concert two issues ago than
anything else.  Khan takes it in stride; this seems way too OOC
for Sonic who chases after the sulking simian.
     Sonic tries to do the male bonding thing with Khan but steps
over the line and Mount Khan finally erupts with the explanation
he hinted at during the close of last issue's "Dangerous
Territory."  He doesn't go into detail, but basically he blames
himself for a) being unable to reconcile the 4 warring clans; b)
being unable to stop Robotnik from propping up Mr. and Mrs. Iron,
and c) being unable to pass universal health insurance.  And to
give Sonic a taste of what he's had to put up with, Nicole drops
in with news that Snively and the Iron Queen have breached
security and entered the village.  Sonic's up for a rematch, but
Khan gets his prehensile tail out of there without any
explanation.
     Above New Knothole are Regina and Snively in separate egg
transports or whatever you want to call them; me, I think they
look like something that fell off of a carnival ride, but never
mind.  Bunnie and Tails are sent in as the first wave, and...
     OK, for those of you who read the back story in the last
issue, here comes the payoff: Queenie utilizes her technomagery
to take control of Bunnie's robotic limbs.  Bunnie is seriously
out of control by the time Sonic shows up.  His idea for dealing
with her is to put the runaway train back in the terminal; i.e.,
locking her in a cage.  But she blasts her way out of there (not
her idea, of course), and it's left to Khan to rescue the furry
little rugrats who were pelting him with rocks a few pages back. 
They ask him why he doesn't get in the game, and while he's
trying to wrap his monkey brain around that one, Bunnie is
looking like one ragged rabbit.  Antoine threatens to kill the
Queen (the threat is in French, so it only works if Regina is
Canadian).  Just then, Khan makes the save and hubby makes the
catch.  While Bunnie is being evaced by Sonic, Khan loses his
Power Ring crown to Snively and Regina takes over what's left of
him.

     HEAD: At least we now know why Khan waited this long to
crash the party.  Me, I'd completely forgotten about his being a
simian-cyborg and that Queenie could do something with that.
     On the plus side, it does kick the story up a notch.  When
Regina was first brought into the Sonic continuity, she didn't
have any defined powers to speak of, a situation that continued
over the past two issues.  I'll have to admit, this one is a
doozie, especially when it comes to bouncing Bunnie around.  By
turning Bunnie's strength into a liability which she can control,
we finally get a sense of how formidable an opponent she can be.
     Too bad much of the rest of the story doesn't live up to the
fight sequence.  Ian has to build some sort of sympathy for Khan
in order to make the payoff at the end of this issue work, but
having little kids throw rocks at him?  That's just cheap and
manipulative.  It also reduces Khan's "explanation" to Sonic of
why he feels like singing a couple bars of Beck's "Loser" to a
bare bones minimum.  OK, it's more of a surprise coming at the
end, but it couldn't have hurt for Khan to admit, no matter how
obliquely, that he's afraid of going up against the Iron Queen. 
By throwing it out there before New Knothole's security has been
breached, he'd at least get a bit more cred for facing his fear.
     Where this goes now, I don't know.  Either something happens
to break Regina's control of Monkey Boy or Khan asserts control
on his own and breaks her spell.  We DO have a precedent in the
Sonicverse for that: in the SatAM ep "Sonic Conversion," Bunnie
and Sonic's Uncle Chuck enjoy a reversion to their normal selves. 
The change, however, proves to be temporary, but Sonic gets Uncle
Chuck to fight the power and he frees up his mind and will,
though his body is still robotic.  I can't help but think that
her curtain line here, "You're mine once again," means that he
got out of a mess like this once before; now it's only a matter
of waiting to see if he can repeat.
     The situation in the Sonic continuity seems to have wandered
pretty far from its roots.  Back in the day, when the Freedom
Fighters were just that, they were a back-to-nature low-tech
group going up against Robotnik and his technical and mechanical
might.  Now we have them living in New Knothole with a
holographic Nicole while Regina fights them with a magic-
technology hybrid talent.  It would be a great testament to the
old school Sonic if someone came up with a low-tech solution to
the problem of the Irons.  But these are just the ramblings of an
old fanboy.  The story moves along, although in the beginning
where the orphans are rocking the monkey it feels like Ian had to
get out and push.  Head Score: 6.
     EYE: Steve Butler does great work here, though there's no
way he can avoid making those floating egg thingies that Regina
and Snively ride in look ridiculous. Eye Score: 9.
     HEART: Khan is supposed to be the focus of the story, but
for this old fan boy Bunnie was the emotional core.
     Even though she was ill-served in the disastrous "Sonic's
Angels" (S152) where she was subjected to the most unspecified of
fates, it's pretty clear what's going on with her in this story:
she's losing control over her bionic parts thanks to Queenie. 
That is a classic nightmare situation: losing control over one's
own body (see the discussion on lycanthropy in my review of the
"Sonic Unleashed" back story in S193).
     There's a scene in Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff" where
the would-be Mercury astronauts are subjected to bizarre medical
examinations.  In one, doctors jab a huge needle with an electric
wire into the bundle of muscles at the base of the thumb.  They
press a button and the hand starts opening and closing like crazy
with no way for the astronauts to stop it.
     That's what Bunnie's going through: bad enough she lost
three of her limbs to roboticization, but now she's lost control
of them and is getting whip-sawed around by Regina.  Fortunately,
Khan sucks it in and breaks the connection before things go too
far.
     As for Khan, he still has to earn his cred in the next
issue; here's hoping he manages to.  Heart Score: 8.


     "Friend In Deed: Part 1"
     Story: Ian Flynn; Art: Jamal Peppers; Ink: Terry Austin;
Color: Matt Herms; Lettering: John E. Workman

     Short and simple this time around: Knuckles is still
puzzling out the Espio plothole as he guards the Master Emerald
when, speak of the ninja, Espio shows up.  There's some non-
committal dialogue between the two before Knuckles gets all
"You'll get to the Master Emerald over my dead body" and Espio is
all "OK" and the fight is on.  We leave with Espio holding a
knife in one hand and Knuckles's dreads in the other.

     HEAD: FINALLY!  Somebody GETS it!  There doesn't have to be
a freakin' speech balloon in every panel of a comic story!  After
one page of expository thought balloons, we get a page where
Knuckles and Espio each say one word.  Then after a wordy third
page Espio gets all of one line and John Workman gets to go home
early.
     One of the things that make me dislike comic books as a
whole is the tendency to use so much dialogue where little or
none is actually required.  And once the Knuckles-Espio fight
starts up, none IS required, and so Ian (who probably is not
getting paid by the word here anyway) lets the characters do
their thing, while letting the Peppers/Austin/Herms team do the
heavy lifting.  Granted that this is a 5-page back story and not
that much really happens, but I certainly hope this catches on
with the comic and that we'll be spared useless dialogue in the
future.
     As for the rest of the story, there's an interesting sense
of ambiguity WRT Espio's comments about the "Bride."  I don't
know where he's going with this, but again I hope it does lead
somewhere.  Head Score: 9.
     EYE: Good work by Peppers, especially with the use of
profiles on page [2] and the "split" panel at the top of page
[3].  Eye Score: 10.
     HEART: It's not a major factor here, though Espio's getting
Knuckles by the dreads has got to hurt.  Heart Score: n/a.


     Fan Art: Loran V. does a full-color Sonic and the Black
Knight tribute, and it's an interesting juxtaposition between Leo
McIntyre's black-and-mostly-white Sonic and Zach's full-color
Shadow pointing at him.  I can imagine Shadow sounding like
Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons: "Ha ha!"
     Sonic-Grams: Frannie is definitely a Son/Sal shipper, and
wonders both why Sonic and Sally aren't a twosome (whereas the
current Sonic Universe arc implies that they were meant for each
other on a cosmic level) and thinks that a Khan/Sal pairing would
"crash and burn like all of Sonic's attempts [at romance]."  Mike
is noncommittal; I'm with Frannie on this one.
     Alicia, who has recently come to the comic, is wondering
when Mephiles will show up now that Silver has wandered into the
Sonic Universe plot.  At this point I'd quote information about
him from some wiki or other, but honestly the explanation is so
convoluted that I'm not even going to try.  I can say that his
bent toward destruction rather than conquest seems to have rubbed
off on Shadow in the current Sonic Universe arc.  Me, I'm just
hoping that Blaze will come into her own as a character and not
just as a counterpoint to Marine as she did in SU1.
     And Britt wants Mike to pass the Cream.  I don't know that
Cream has that much of a fan base; besides, a little of her goes
a long way.  If she does get extended exposure in the comic,
diabetics are advised to keep their insulin handy.